These are the hundred and fifty Conservative seats with the lowest percentage majorities. This does not necessarily mean they would be the most vulnerable Conservative seats in practice, nor that they are the seats the Conservative party will be putting the most effort into defending.

‘One really wonders at the fate of openly Eurosceptic MPs who suddenly switch for In. ‘

Hardline reactionary right-winger blogger Paul Staines has compiled such a list and labels Mark Pritchard – one of the two dozen or so Tories expected to back Brexit but who’s come out the other way – a “sell out”

I think such MPs will have a lot of explaining to do to their staunchly Eurosceptic local associations, many of whom prize dislike of the EU considerably higher than loyalty to a Conservative Prime Minister

Riddle me this…. firstly Cameron has promised new intake a seat if they want it.. but he may not be around to make good on it.. will Boris or another leader feel they need to make good on DC’s promise?

Then, if an MP came out to Remain to keep the PM happy but is delegated to run in a surviving seat that has an Association that is hot for Brexit, how well is that going to go down with selectors?

Has Cameron actually promised people a seat post-boundary review, or has he just said something about doing all that he can and so on? I wouldn’t have thought he could impose candidates on local associations, which he’d need to do to fulfil that promise.

I see at least twenty non-retirement age Tory MPs heading for the dustbin of history.

One thing is to do a chicken run as a high profile MP or Minister and another is to try to get repositioned when your seat of Barchester West gets the chop and you have done little except ask three PMQs in the last five years.

No profile, no incumbency, no love (and maybe having supported Remain).. its cold out there…

Usually things sort themselves out with boundary reviews and finding seats. Admittedly the overall seat cut will make it tougher, but still neighbouring retirements should ensure almost all incumbents that have their seat abolished will get one (some may end up with a worse seat but on average Tories will be more likely to end up with a better seat). In 2015 many MPs not of retirement age retired, and I expect that will be the same in 2020, so there will be enough vacancies.

Of course Cameron has no ability to ‘promise’ anything… it will be up to the local associations.

Well, Jack, keep telling them that… and they can take another Xanax while they are at it..

A number of MPs that thought they would be toast retired in the 2010-2015 cycle. There are not exactly flocks of Tories nearing retirement age.

This neighbouring seats thing is bogus. As I pointed out in Pembrokeshire, two non-retirement age Tories will be fighting it out to see who survives and there is no nearby seat for one of them to decamp to.

Some male MPs might also find themselves at a disadvantage to female MPs… and then there is the issue of Tories that fall out with their associations over Brexit.

I said ‘almost all’. And your Pembrokeshire example is not insolvable. On the 2011 aborted review boundaries Stephen Crabb would get to the better seat of Pembrokeshire South, but Simon Hart would still be able to contest the new creation of Caerfryddin which would become a three-way marginal. I am not saying that no MPs will miss out, just that it is unlikely that many will.

Chris Davies would presumably keep Brecon, Radnor and Montgomery, with Glyn Davies going to Denbigh and Montgomeryshire North if he doesn’t retire (admittedly a downgrade , as this is a very different seat with LAB strength which is completely lacking in the current Montgomeryshire).

All of this on the 2011 aborted review boundaries, of course. They may be different this time.

Cant see an October election. The new Tory leader wont be in place till the end of September. Maybe November or March/May( Easter is Mid April so two weeks of April are out because elections during Holiday times never seem to happen).
All depends really on what the polls say. If an increased Tory Majority looks certain then they will be one. If there is much of a risk of a hung parliament or even relying on the DUP/UUP then no.

I wouldn’t rule out an election but only think it will happen if the following two things are true:

1/ Polls suggest the Conservatives would win a landslide
2/ The government needs more Brexit supporting MPs to get its policies through.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act is also not as easily got round as is sometimes suggested. Could a 2/3 majority for an election be found? Whilst you might imagine Labour have to back such a motion on the off chance of winning the election it could be turkeys voting for Christmas. The ‘no confidence yourself’ option (which would only need a majority) is sometimes also floated, but would look very weird and it is uncertain all Tories would support it.

I certainly think this year is very unlikely as you’d be looking at November/December by the time a new Tory leader is in place, and that assumes they go to the country instantly. If there is a fresh election I think we’d be looking at next May.

JS : But a May 16 GE gives Jarvis or Watson or whoever gain credibility and traction. I thinks it’s a November 4th election. I know that looks odd as we don’t have elections other than in May or October right? However, It could easily be sooner why not September,?– backbench Tories triggering a Ldrship election in the next 2 mnths

Re: FTPA..it could be repealed. But again the numbers are a headache to tot up.

Repeal, strictly speaking, actually wouldn’t work as that would leave no rules for the duration of parliaments at all. New legislation allowing the PM to call an election whenever whilst making five-years only a maximum again could be passed but it would have to go through the Lords who would likely delay it, and a majority for it in the Commons would also be uncertain.

If you put yourself in the shoes of the MP for, say, Derby North I don’t think you’d be very keen on a fresh election. Even if polls say the majority would increase polls have often been wrong of late and you’d be worried about losing.

This is how I understand the FTPA and some implications of it:
Under the FTPA, Parliament’s fixed five-year term can only be truncated in two ways. First, if more than two thirds of the House of Commons vote to call an election – and that means 434 of the 650 MPs, not just two thirds of those in the chamber. The second is more complicated. If a motion of no confidence is passed or there is a failed vote of confidence, there is a 14-day period in which to pass an act of confidence in a new government. If no such vote is passed, a new election must be held, probably a mere 17 working days later.

Surely this means BJOHNSON – if elected leader can’t lose. Either way he wins. He call for a vote of confidence in his new govt, if he gets it he carries on. If he loses he gets a general election.

ANOTHERWORLD:
“May I commend the posters on here that predicted a May election? ”

Yes; BM11, JS and DEEPTHROAT all seemed to realise how easy it was to get around the FTPA. It seems we had/have a fixed term parliament – but not if the govt has a slender majority AND is riding high in the polls.

I’m not a constitutional expert. What could stop the new government from creating a fixed term parliament of 10 years?. 20 years?

Though the Conservatives are clearly doing worse now at this very moment, in terms of the straight fights with the LibDems,
By polling day I think not just the existing damage from having a single-issue fringe position on the EU, & Farron general Spaniel-smelling lack of appeal, but the other things like scrapping Prevent (bad), having civil liberties (good, but unpopular), former prominent pro-refugee positioning (usually this is re-phrased from basically ‘always more than whatever the government is doing’)… these (plus some more tax & legal weed) will additionally hamper the ability to gain pluralities particularly when facing Tory incumbents.

A lot of money seems to have been piled on St Albans and it’s not obvious to me why.

It was 13/2 when I originally looked at it as a possible value bet shortly after the election was called, and I regret taking it. It can hardly be said that the Lib Dems have shown signs of a surge since. Yes, the Conservative-Labour battleground seems to have tightened up, but for the LDs to be on course to do what was (quite reasonably) believed to be possible in Remain constituencies their own share would surely need to be higher than it has consistently remained at?

With Jeremy Corbyn at 38% in the polls, it’s obvious that the Lib Dems don’t have a hope in Cambridge, and will in all probability lose further ground to the Tories with a surge in Labour votes in places like Bath and Kingston.

“Yes, the Conservative-Labour battleground seems to have tightened up, but for the LDs to be on course to do what was (quite reasonably) believed to be possible in Remain constituencies their own share would surely need to be higher than it has consistently remained at?”

The Remain vote is lining up behind Corbyn and leaving the Lib Dems totally bereft. It’s one of the few silver linings for the Tories of the Labour poll surge, it will decimate the Lib Dem chances almost everywhere.

Apparently torries internal polling backs up the tightening of the race and that the thinking is a 50-85 seat majority is the most likely outcome. And that Thressa May could face a challenge if she doesnt win a majority of more than 100. Source is a friend who has been speaking to well connected sources.

Having campaigned in both Richmond Park and Twickenham for the Lib Dems, I would say that the former is too close to call at present, but Vince Cable has an excellent chance of getting back in the latter. He only lost in 2015 because of the scare around the potential Milliband / Scot Nat coalition imho.

Richmond Park is very interesting because of the self-harm committed by Zac Goldsmith over the by-election, Brexit and his disastrous London Mayoralty campaign. Whereas in 2010 and 2015 he appeared an exciting and rather glamorous new-style politico, he now looks to my neighbours as an unprincipled self-seeking hack.He should not fail to regain this seat, but he might just do so!

Matt Wilson – bookies set initial odds. Those odds generally move according to what punters bet in order to ensure the books remain balanced. It’s not *quite* as black-and-white as that, but there has been no game-changing moment in recent weeks which would prompt bookies to pro-actively slash LD odds.

St Albans has, according to bookmakers, become a much better Lib Dem prospect than it was four or five weeks ago. This is clearly nonsense based on the Lib Dem vote going nowhere, and therefore the only explanation is money going on it.

“Thressa May could face a challenge if she doesn’t win a majority of more than 100.”

Well der. Theresa May put all her eggs in the leadership basket and they ended up on her face (if you’ll excuse the torturously mixed metaphor), Which, in the not-as-certain-as-it-once-was scenario that the Tories do get over the line, would utterly destroy the point in having the election, as once again the Conservatives would have a PM hamstrung by a former leader’s mandate.

It now appears to me that Labour are going to pick off, rather patchily, a few seats from their target list. and that this may cost the Tories their majority. It looks like Labour will hold most of what they already have.

It may be important whether the Conservatives are able to pick up seats in Scotland, and whether they are able to hold onto Tory/LibDem marginals, several of which appear to be on a knife-edge..

In response to Politroll, the nearest to the current situation is 1923, when Bonar Law went to the electorate over free trade and lost his majority.

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